The present invention relates generally to communicating with appliances that include embedded devices, and more particularly to communicating with a device management system (DMS) having a DMS server for device-based applications, which server communicates via a network with such appliances using an architecture that can accommodate various network-enabled embedded device protocols.
So-called object-oriented device representation or device-object modeling has been applied to various consumer and industrial devices ranging from copy machines to washing machines, vending machines, utility meters, and so on. In embedded object technology, each device may be deemed an object in a software sense, which model can enable embedded devices to have more functionality, complexity, and power.
It is known in the art for users to remotely utilize, configure, and monitor embedded devices over a communications network, and many devices are network-enabled devices. Embedded devices that can be appropriately network-enabled will require a more scalable, robust management system. Unfortunately embedded devices produced by different manufacturers often have different device protocols to generate and transmit data and control information to or from the devices. Some exemplary device protocols that are under present development include universal plug-and-play (UPnP), Jini, Salutation, LON, and Emware.
The variety of existing device protocols complicates the implementation of a management terminal system intended to communicate via a network with many such devices, regardless of protocol. From the perspective of a management terminal system or application server, it often is desirable to use multiple protocols and representations, including for example conventionally-defined object-oriented interfaces, and SNMP. Preferably some such protocols and interfaces useable by the management terminal system or application server would be substantially simpler than what the devices under control use. If such control architecture were implemented, the protocol translation could advantageously hid much of the network-level complexity.
In addition to providing an ability to communicate, manage, and interact with various independent protocols, it could be especially advantageous to manipulate the appearance of the appliance-level device, for example to remove or to restrict access to certain device-level capabilities, to augment device-level functionality. Preferably such a management terminal system or application server should also be able to effectively merge multiple devices to create virtual devices with desired levels of control and functionality.
In summary, there is a need for a scalable, robust device management system that can support, manage, and control network-enabled embedded devices that use any of a variety of protocols. Such system should allow embedded device applications written in one format (e.g., SNMP) to manage embedded devices that support a different format (e.g., UPnP). Further, there is a need for a mechanism whereby existing network management systems can support and manage such network-enabled embedded devices using a range of communications media including LANs, WANs, or the internet. Such device management system should be able to modify the appearance including functionality of the controlled-device and should be able to merge multiple devices to create virtual devices with desired characteristics.
The present invention provides such a device management system and methodology.
The present invention is a device management system (DMS) that provides an architecture and system enabling a remote device management server (DMS server) to communicate via a network such as the Internet with a plurality of network-enabled embedded devices having a variety of device protocols. The remote DMS server translates different information formats (UPnP, LON, etc.) associated with various of the devices into formats suitable for management applications. One result is that applications written for one format (e.g. SNMP) can be used to manage devices supporting a different device format (e.g. UPnP). The DMS server preferably communicates with a set of back-end management applications, which further communicate with a set of interface protocols, e.g., SNMP, Jini. The DMS server thus provides an interface between the devices (and device gateways) and the back-end management applications operating on the devices.
Overall, the DMS preferably is implemented with an object-oriented, layered architecture. One layer in this architecture is a device model (DM) core that supports an object model for modeling devices in any format and services, which core provides access control, logging, and historical statistics for represented devices. A device plug-in layer converts device protocols to the DMS object model and can support separate device plug-ins for each device protocol (e.g., LON, UPnP, Jini, Salutation, Emware). Application plug-ins implement interfaces between applications and DMS object models and services. Application plug-ins support standard protocols such as SNMP and Jini and run in the DMS address space.
The DMS advantageously can provide users with a very meaningful view of network-enabled embedded devices, and also gives system integrators a rich infrastructure to support a wide variety of networked devices. Overall, the present invention enables the embedded devices to run a commonly available network management application as a front-end application, while the DMS server provides an aggregation and semantic conversion service for the back-end management applications.
In the past, a system integrator having an SNMP management console to monitor devices configured and installed by the integrator could not readily offer new devices that could not also be managed with SNMP. However by using a DMS according to the present invention in which a common interface and network connectivity is provided for managed devices, even new devices can be communicated with in their native protocol, and management of such new devices can still occur with an existing SNMP console. In essence the devices can function as the user interface to the DMS.
Other features and advantages of the invention will appear from the following description in which the preferred embodiments have been set forth in detail, in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.